made of cotton, linen, or other dense woven fabric—absorbs
the fuel at a steady rate. Th e fuel is distilled into carbon at the
end of the wick, which burns with enough energy to give off a
visible fl ame. In the making of lamp wicks, the Chinese took
an important step forward with the invention of the asbestos
wick in about the fourth century b.c.e. Th ese wicks burned
without being consumed, providing a steadier and more de-
pendable light. Th ey were more costly to produce, however,
making the use of such permanent wicks a mark of wealthy
and royal households.
Th e color and brightness of the lamp fl ame depended on
the type of fuel and wick used; some ancient societies added
salt to lamp oil to make it burn a brighter shade of yellow.
A single lamp with a small reservoir might have burned for
eight to 10 hours before its fuel ran dry. Some oils gave off
pungent smells and created soot as they burned, covering the
walls, ceiling, and furniture with a thin fi lm of carbonized
black dust.
Lamps were designed in various shapes and in terra-
cotta, stone, and metal. Th e city of Mohenjo Daro also had
street lights and lights illuminating gates and doorways.
Public lighting was well advanced in China under the Han
Dynasty (202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.), which was contemporary to
ancient Rome. Such lighting remained a mysterious phenom-
enon closely associated with the otherworldly and the sacred.
It was also a source of entertainment. Th e shadow play, in
which hands or puppets are illuminated by a lantern and sil-
houetted against a sheet of linen, dates back more than 2,000
years. Shadow plays and “magic lanterns” were popular in an-
cient China and Japan. In the second century c.e. a Chinese
inventor named Ting Huan created a device on which the fi g-
ures of birds and animals moved, and sounds were created,
in a shaft of projected light. Th e magic lantern, the ancestor
of the modern cinema, spread in the following centuries to
Southeast Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, giving rise to illu-
minated puppet theaters that remain a vital art form in many
parts of Asia.
EUROPE
BY MICHAEL J. O’NEAL
Th e ancient world was a dark place at night. Th roughout the
lunar year the moon provided some illumination for a few
nights each month, assuming that skies were not cloudy. But
in common with modern people, ancient people had to fi nd
ways to provide artifi cial light to illuminate their world. Even
during daytime illumination was needed in such places as
caves, underground food storage facilities, and homes.
Th e ancient Europeans illuminated their world with fi re.
Archaeologists routinely fi nd evidence of fi re in the form of
charred wood or smoke on the walls and ceilings of caves, such
as the famous Lascaux cave in France, known for its ancient
wall paintings. In the earliest human communities—in Eu-
rope and throughout the inhabited world—humans learned
to harness fi re to provide light. Th e earliest such fi res were
probably communal bonfi res, around which an entire com-
munity gathered at night. Th is communal fi re was the source
of fi res used by individual families in their homes. Fire, then,
became not only a practical way to provide light but also a key
part of the social life of the community. People had to work
together to provide fuel for the fi re, tend it throughout the
night so that it did not go out, and keep it smoldering during
the day so that it could be rejuvenated the next night. Fire
formed the center of an early form of social organization and
provided a place where people met to discuss the events of
the day and to transmit stories and legends about their com-
munity.
While many fi res were set outdoors, many were built
in caves, up against rock formations, and even in individual
huts. Many huts in ancient Europe were round, with the
fi re built on the fl oor in the center so that smoke could exit
through a hole in the center of the roof. Th e roundness of the
hut ensured that the fi re’s warmth and light were somewhat
evenly distributed throughout.
Early on, fi re acquired symbolic and religious connota-
tions. Fire was associated with light and warmth, and cre-
ation myths inevitably focus on the separation of the light
from the darkness. Accordingly, even in ancient societies,
light played a major role in religious observances, and fi res
in some form were kept lit at shrines and places of worship.
Th e ancient Celtic Druids, for example, used fi re in religious
ceremonies and kept fi res lit as a way of paying homage to
gods and goddesses.
Bonfi res, though, were unwieldy and potentially danger-
ous, and communal bonfi res were less useful in windy, rainy,
or cold conditions, so early Europeans learned to control fi re
for light in other ways. Th e principal light management tool
was the lamp, which had the advantage of portability. Early
lamps were made of stone, with a hollowed-out depression
into which fuel could be placed. Some of these lamps were
fashioned by hand, but sometimes a person was lucky enough
to fi nd a suitable rock with a depression. Limestone was a pre-
ferred rock for at least two reasons. Because limestone is soft ,
it was easy to fashion into a lamp by carving out a depres-
sion. Furthermore, limestone does not conduct heat well, so
the lamp remained relatively cool to the touch and could be
carried about. Many ancient European lamps, though, were
made of sandstone, which conducts much more heat. Accord-
ingly, sandstone lamps were fashioned with handles.
Th e most common fuel, other than such materials as
bark shavings, was oil. Rendered animal fat (fat that has been
melted down) from game animals and livestock was a good
fuel, but it had the disadvantage of being smoky. Vegetable
oils were effi cient and less smoky, but archaeological evidence
f rom a ncient Eu rope shows t hat veget able oi ls were not w idely
used. A third fuel was beeswax, or the waxy substance from
which bees make honeycombs. Wicks were probably made of
such materials as cedar bark (cedar contains its own oils that
make it useful as kindling for a fi re, and the bark tears off the
tree in strips) or any other material that would readily absorb588 illumination: Europe